


Golden Light

by claudia603



Category: Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-16
Updated: 2010-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-08 23:55:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/80794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claudia603/pseuds/claudia603
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of his life, Merry remembers love and light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Golden Light

**Author's Note:**

> Sort of warning: Canon character death.

I still dream about him nearly every night, and in these dreams, it is often raining, such as it did when we stood that long ago evening at the Havens, silent tears running down our cheeks, watching his ship dwindle into the dusk. He arrives first as golden light breaking through the gray clouds. Then through the light, I catch sight of his smile -- the same that both twisted and lifted our hearts when he turned to us for the last time. At last he stands before me in the flesh, his curls mussed, lips bruised, half undressed, just as he was after a night of love. My heart soars, and I am young and hale again, barely out of my tweens. I am not Meriadoc the Magnificent, but simply Merry of Buckland.

The dreams are mostly the same, and sometimes Sam is in them, too, and more recently, since Pippin's death, he comes, too. We are all young and carefree again, as we were in the Shire that last summer, the summer of the conspiracy. Frodo, Sam, and Pippin take turns passing in and out of my dreams, like characters in a ghostly play -- a play that was once popular but that has run far beyond its arc of popularity and for which the audience is now stale and humorless and the stage full of cobwebs and broken props.

In my favorite of these, I am in Bag End. I sit on the edge of his bed, undressed, tingling all over from a night in which we could not keep our hands from each other. Frodo leans on the doorframe to his bedroom with a sleepy smile. While I slept in, he has already had a walk and breakfast. He wants to know if I want anything from the market. His cheeks are flushed and one button has come off his shirt. I was not gentle with him in the night, which is how he likes it. The translucent skin on his wrists will show bruises. One brace is off his shoulder and dangles at his side and his mussed hair and general disarray warm my groin and make me want to throw him on the bed and start again what we have been doing all night. I touch myself, breathing in sharp need as I recall his silken skin, his curls brushing my cheeks as he thrust against me with breathy gasps, his tongue, soft and warm but shockingly strong around mine, his narrow wrists, so easy to hold down.

"I want only you," I always say.

He smiles and shakes his head, saying, "Uh, uh, uh," like one does to a naughty child who has just opened the pantry to steal a biscuit. He slips the dangling brace over his shoulder. "I shall fetch us some fresh mushrooms and eggs. How does that sound?"

"I'm not hungry. Don't go." I do not want him to leave, even for a moment. If he goes, he will never come back and the rain will blow in the open windows. I wipe a tear from my cheek. "Stay. Come back to bed. You've not worn me out yet."

Frodo does come to me, then, breathing hard and staring at me under heavy-lidded eyes. If I can grasp hold of him, I can keep him. I'm bigger and stronger than he is, and he'll not long resist. My nibbles on his lip and neck make him helpless. But I don't get the chance to nibble. Instead, Frodo grasps my cheeks in his hands and kisses me with such assault that I nearly fall off the edge of the bed.

"You have forgotten, haven't you?" Frodo asks, hands on his hips.

"Forgotten what?" I ask. It is not either of our birthdays.

Frodo laughs, as if he fully expected me to forget. "Never mind. Wait for me."

But like all the other dreams, he never returns. Sam comes by to ask if I need anything. The rain bursts from the sky, blowing in the window and splattering Frodo's bed, and Sam rushes to close the windows. "Mr. Frodo shouldn't keep his windows open like this," he scolds. He does not seem concerned that Frodo has been gone for so long.

Pippin stops by, chattering about this and that, laughing. But he fails to notice that Frodo is gone.

"Where is he?" I blurt, and Sam and Pippin look at me as if I have gone mad.

"Why, he's here. Right here, Mr. Merry," Sam says. Pippin laughs and goes on to tell a story about running into Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, and how he charmed her into a rare smile.

 

Now awake, lying in bed in Minas Tirith, once again Meriadoc the Magnificent, under the special care of the King, my heart still aches from not finding him. I glance to the calendar, one that Pippin and I brought from the Shire when we set off six years ago. It is September 29, 1491 in Shire reckoning, 70 years to the day when Frodo sailed.

You were wrong. I did not forget.

When I close my eyes this last time, a golden ray pierces the clouds, followed by his smile. But this time, he takes my hand and invites me into the light.

 

END


End file.
